outrageous

Tina sat on the old couch in their living room, resting her elbows on her knees and cradling her head in her hands. Her throat was dry. She asked again, “Did Frank sell me out?”

Lip placed his hands on his hips. “At least you didn’t go for cheap. He sold you for a million dollars.”

Tina looked at him with disbelief just as Debbie came downstairs with Peter, who was carrying a small handbag. “We’ve packed your things.”

“This is ridiculous,” Tina protested. “If they come here and can’t find me, they’ll tear this place apart.”

Ian laughed. “When they come here and find Lip and me, they’ll just leave.”

“What if they don’t?”

Rebecca cleared her throat. “Are you kidding? Do you really think Bucky and Steve would let anything happen to the kids? You’ll only stay until they find Frank and hand him over. Don’t exaggerate.”

“Liam can’t sleep without me!”

Steve chuckled. “No offense, but he’s sleeping peacefully with Emma now. You’re not irreplaceable, Tina. The kids are growing up.”

This time, Tina turned to Peter, but the boy didn’t let her speak. “Tina, my dad might not be the easiest guy in the world, but I’m sure he’ll protect you. Besides, where else can you go outside this neighborhood?”

The girl shrugged. The kid was right. It was only until they caught Frank and handed him over, right? How long could that take? She shuddered at the memory of the time her father had vanished for eight months. But arguing further wouldn’t help. She hugged Rebecca and Steve, thanking them for looking after Liam. She warned Lip and Ian a hundred times. Grabbing the small bag, she walked out to the garden with Peter and Debbie following her. They would be getting into the car driven by Happy, sent by Tony. As the man got out to help her with her bag, her eyes caught sight of Bucky's house right next door, to her left. When she locked eyes with the man sitting in his rocking chair on the porch, watching her with narrowed eyes, she quickly turned her gaze down. A chill crawled up her spine.

Not long ago, she had thought Bucky's arms were the safest place in the world. Now, even making eye contact with the man felt like surrendering her soul.

Finally, as she was leaving the neighborhood, she saw Luna, Pietro's daughter, walking toward Bucky's garden fence with a casserole dish in her hands.

“Little Miss Sunshine, I'm not in the mood, just so you know. Take your rainbows and unicorns and get off my lawn.”

Luna was used to the man's grumpiness. With her arms trembling under the weight of the casserole dish she held tightly with both hands, she entered through the open garden gate and climbed the short steps. She stood beside Bucky. “Could you open the door, Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky crossed his arms over his chest. “If I hear you say ‘James’ from those lovely shiny lips, why not?”

Luna blushed to her ears as she looked at the man grinning at her with a self-satisfied expression. God! Honestly, she hated that Bucky Barnes could make her blush like this with just a raise of his eyebrow. But what she hated more was that she kind of liked it.

She loved it when James called her “Lovely Shiny Lips.” But could she admit that? Never! For a moment, she thought about how her father would go crazy if he found out, even if everything was going well and Bucky liked her back.

“My arms are hurting.”

Bucky got up and placed his hand on the doorknob. “My arms are hurting, who?”

The girl conceded. “James.”

Bucky opened the door. “Not so hard, is it, Shiny Lips?”

As Luna reminded herself to touch up her lip gloss, she placed the casserole she had made with Wanda’s recipe in the kitchen of the man who had followed her. When she turned back, the man was leaning against the door, watching her with his arms crossed over his chest. “You don’t have to bring me food.”

“I know, but it was a new recipe I was trying, and I thought—”

“You wanted to poison me, not the others in the house. I get it.”

“No! It’s not like that!”

The man laughed. “No problem.”

The unfortunate event that led Luna to enter James Buchanan Barnes's house had happened just ten days ago.

A boy she liked from school had asked her out and then left his marijuana in her pocket, running away to avoid paying the bill. Left in the middle of the café, not knowing what to do, she was shocked when the police came and searched her. While thinking she would end up in jail because of the weed found in her pocket, she had heard James's voice, who happened to be there: “Just look at that face, do you think she might be using it?” He had come over, gently tilting her chin to show the police. “About to pass out.”

The officers who recognized him immediately greeted him. James was always around when Luna was growing up because he was close friends with her father and aunt Wanda for a long time. She also knew that James was completely unaware of the girl. She had a crush on the Winter Soldier all her childhood. The man wouldn't even see Luna when he came to their house, that was how uninterested he was in the girl's presence.

“I know her father. I’ll handle this,” Bucky had said. “You mentioned there’s been no prior record, right?”

And so, with Bucky's help, Luna had managed to get out of that situation. When Bucky offered to drive her home, she thought he was being polite, but the route turned out to be heading not home but to hell.

“Have you lost your mind? How could you get yourself into trouble with the cops? Your father’s the Escobar of this damn Chicago! Are you carrying weed?”

When Luna started to cry, Bucky finally fell silent, but then the girl told him how she had been fooled by the boy she liked...

Bucky’s expression softened, but he kept his eyes on the road. “Luna,” he said in a gentle voice, “boys your age don’t like good girls. You’re a good girl. And even if they did like you, your father would chop their heads off.”

Luna laughed through her tears, “I thought he liked me,” she said, sniffling.

“You misunderstood,” Bucky cut her off. “When a guy likes a girl, he doesn’t slip drugs into her pocket and leave her for the police.”

“But…”

When Bucky shot her one of his famous, chilling looks, Luna shrank back in her seat. The topic was closed.

Since that day, Luna had been trying to repay her debt to Bucky for not telling her father, while also easing her own conscience. The day after he saved her, she found herself at his door with a cherry pie in hand. As she saw Bucky open the door in nothing but sweatpants, she felt like she had been hit by a spear and regretted her decision, but it was too late now. When she finally forced herself to look up from his well-defined abs to his face, her ears burned. She made a sound of protest when Bucky plunged his finger right into the middle of the pie, but she couldn’t help but be mesmerized as he tried to figure out the flavor by putting his finger in his mouth.

“How did you know I liked cherry?”

Because it's sour and sweet at the same time, just like you. She bit her tongue to keep from speaking.

“Luna?”

“Um... I just wanted to thank you.” She handed him the pie, now with a hole in the middle.

Bucky waved two fingers of his free hand in front of his forehead to salute her, “Alright then.”

As he was about to close the door, Luna stopped him. “And um…”

“What?” Bucky bit the inside of his cheek to hide his amusement. He was trying not to laugh. Who would have thought that a notorious criminal like Pietro and a queen of con artists like Wanda would have such a sweet and innocent relative?

“If I had gotten caught, I would have faced at least forty days of community service.”

“True.”

“But thanks to you, I didn’t get caught.”

“That’s also true.”

“So I thought, if you don’t mind, I could do something for you for forty days? After all, you’re a retired soldier. It would technically be a public service, right? Plus, I’d be showing my gratitude for your help, and I could sleep easy at night knowing my conscience is clear?”

Besides, I can see you every day. The girl kept this thought to herself and tried hard to hide her excitement.

If someone else had asked this, Bucky would have shouted them away from his house until the last breath of air in his lungs was gone, but Luna… Her delicate nature combined with her honesty made him wonder how someone like her could survive in this century. What twenty-two-year-old girl would return to someone as terrifying as Bucky to pay off her debts? She wondered if Pietro knew about how delicate his daughter? The man lived in a world where the weak were prey. How was he supposed to protect Luna?

"Sergeant Barnes?"

Bucky snapped out of his thoughts. "Alright. You’re hired, little one. You’re my slave for the next forty days. And if you call me Sergeant Barnes again, I’ll make you regret being born."

The girl jumped as the door slammed in her face. A slave for forty days? Hey, she had plans to bake some cookies and help Bucky with his shopping list! What had she gotten herself into?

Well, for the past ten days, all she had done was cook and endure the grumpy Bucky. If she could last another month, she’d have repaid her debt to him.

She opened the door and followed the Bucky to his kitchen. "It’s my birthday tonight." Luna placed the tiny invitation card she had drawn herself next to the casserole.

"A little socializing might be nice, James."

Bucky chuckled and, as if he didn’t already know, asked her age. "How old are you now, munchkin?"

Luna grinned and, as she left the kitchen, said, "I don’t know about you, but I'm feeling twenty-two." Then she walked out of the house.